I am a political activist who has worked and lived in the West Bank of the Occupied Palestinian Territories. This blog chronicles my time in Palestine and also provides news and analysis about Palestine and the situation on the ground in the Occupied Palestinian Territories.

Tuesday, February 14, 2017

REPORT: Efforts To Fight BDS Have Failed, Says ADL, Reut

Dear friends,

as you will be aware, the Israeli government and Zionist organisations have spent millions and millions of dollars attempting to counter the non-violent Palestinian Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaign, which is premised on international law and calls for justice and equality. Leading the charge to delegitimise BDS was the Israeli based, Reut Institute.

In 2010, the Reut Institute issued a series of articles and reports identifying the Palestinian BDS campaign as an "existential threat" to Israel. Reut called on the Israeli government to "attack" the BDS campaign/supporters and carry to out "sabotage" against the movement (see Electronic Intifada's full coverage here). In particular, Reut called for a “price tag” on to be placed on BDS activisim (ie. publicly outing/shaming Palestine solidarity activists) and for Israeli spy agencies to collect information
on groups supportive of BDS.

Last year, Reut partnered with the USA based Anti-Defamation League (ADL) to combat BDS. However, one year later, the two groups have issued a report stating that their and the Israeli government's efforts to fight BDS have largely failed.

This will not come as as surprise to anyone involved the Palestinian BDS campaign. While Israel and its supporters have tried to use lawfare (legal methods) to stop BDS, they have only had minor success. Similarly, the attempt to intimidate and shame Palestine solidarity activists has also failed, as has Israel's "hasbara" (propaganda) efforts.

The primary reason for this being: Palestine solidarity activists have nothing to a shamed off - BDS is a non-violent campaign which draws inspiration from the South African anti-apartheid struggle and is squarely based on international law. Attempts to "shame" and "out" Palestine BDS campaigners have also largely failed because most of us are already very public about our activism. In addition, as Reut and ADL's latest report notes, Israel's hasbara efforts have largely failed because Israel is by far the best legitimiser of Israel - by continuing to engage in apartheid and occupation, carry out human rights abuses, war crimes and ethnic cleansing against the Palestinians, Israel continued to undermine its own legitimacy.

The problem for the Israeli state is the the same problem faced by all oppressors, neither time or truth is on their side. As Malcolm X noted in regard to this: “Time is on the side of the oppressed today, it's
against the oppressor. Truth is on the side of the oppressed today, it's
against the oppressor".

I have included below two articles from the Forward discussing the partnership between Reut and the ADL and their latest report about the failure of their efforts to counter BDS

In a new report circulating privately in Jewish policy circles this
month, two leading pro-Israel groups charge that Jewish communal efforts
against the BDS movement have largely failed.The report, issued by the Anti-Defamation League and the Israel-based
Reut Institute, claims that Jewish groups’s investments in fighting
what they call “the assault on Israel’s legitimacy” has grown twentyfold
since 2010, but that “results remain elusive.”

In 2015 and 2016, a long list of Jewish groups, in addition to the
Israeli government itself, announced their own programs to counter the
movement to boycott, divest from and sanction Israel. Organizations and
donors pledged tens of millions of dollars to the effort. The report
claims that it’s not working.

“The challenge to the fundamental legitimacy of Israel…[is] growing around the world,” the report says.

But while the report’s authors acknowledge that the Israeli
government’s own actions play a role in the worldwide growth of
anti-Israel sentiment, they propose their own action plan for what they
call the “pro-Israel network.”

The prescription seems to contain a contradiction. On the one hand,
it calls for a big tent approach that accepts progressive critics of
Israel. And the other, it demands an all-out assault on leading critics
of Israel, sometimes using covert means.

“The instigators must be singled out from the other groups, and
handled uncompromisingly, publicly or covertly,” the report reads.

The report is the product of an unlikely partnership between the ADL,
a historic Jewish civil rights group, and the national security-focused
Reut. News of the partnership was first reported by the Forward last February.

At 30 pages, the document offers a “strategic framework” for opposing
the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement, among other efforts
that the authors characterize as attacks on Israel’s legitimacy.

The report opposes new spending on pro-Israel efforts. Instead, it
advocates for the better targeting of preexisting programs; the use of
“legal measures” to take on “incitement against Jews and Israel” on
social media, and additional investment in “intelligence and strategy.”ADL and Reut are only circulating print copies of the report. The
Forward was given copies on the condition that they not be posted online
in their entirety.

In an interview at the Forward’s offices in early February, ADL
national president Jonathan Greenblatt acknowledged that the actions of
the Israelis plays a role in what the report characterizes as the growth
of worldwide anti-Israel sentiment.

“The government of Israel can do a lot to change this dynamic,” Greenblatt said. “So can the Palestinian leadership.”

Yet the report itself appears careful not to make specific demands of
the Israeli government. Instead, it acknowledges that the lack of
progress on political solutions are directly empowering the so-called
“delegitimization movement.”

Its recommendations are targeted mostly at Jewish communal groups, and the broader hasbarah, or pro-Israel public relations, apparatus.

In places, the report appears to call for a broadening of the
pro-Israel tent, and an end to the exclusion of progressive groups from
Jewish spaces.

It calls for a narrower definition of “delegitimization” that will
allow left-wing groups to be welcome in Jewish spaces. It also calls for
“authentic solidarity” with other minority groups on issues of
immigrant rights and racism. It cautions against narrow expectations of
transactional benefits, arguing that such work can generally help the
Jewish community “re-acquire credibility” among other minorities.

“We invented intersectionality,” Greenblatt told the Forward,
referring to the ADL’s history of finding common cause on civil rights
issues across ethnic and religious lines.Yet at times, the report’s calls for a big tent seem strained.

The report suggests that “red lines” for inclusion in the broad
pro-Israel network should be drawn at those who express criticism that
is consistently one-sided, “not nuanced and without context.” That
language has the potential to exclude many groups on the Jewish left
that are fed up with Israel’s 50-year occupation of the West Bank.

The report also refers to targeted boycotts of West Bank settlements,
a tactic supported by many progressive Jews in Israel and the U.S., as a
“challenge.”

It calls for “alternatives” to targeted boycotts, but its
recommendations can be difficult to parse: “The polarization around the
issue of targeted boycott is an indication of the lack of ethical
clarity necessary in order to stand united against delegitimization by
fostering diverse coalitions.”

Finally, while the report advocates efforts to engage and win over
most critics of Israel, it advocates a hardline approach to what it
calls “the instigators.”

Gidi Grinstein, president of Reut, defended the call for acting
“uncompromisingly,” in “covert” and public ways, against these critics.

“We have to be very, very strategic,” Grinstein said.

The report’s authors argued that this narrow group of “instigators” are “modern day anti-Semites.”

The Anti-Defamation League has announced its own new effort to oppose
the boycott of Israeli goods, joining a plethora of Jewish groups that
have launched similar efforts in recent months.

Calling efforts to boycott, divestment from and sanction Israel an
“attack on Israel and the Jewish people,” the ADL said on February 29
that it would partner with the Reut Institute, an Israeli think tank, to
produce a study of the BDS movement, as it is commonly known.

In the past, Reut has called for the use of aggressive tactics
against those it views as denying Israel’s legitimacy as a Jewish state.
In a 2010 report, the group called for putting a “price tag” on
criticism of Israel and for Israeli spy agencies to collect information
on groups working to delegitimize Israel.

The ADL’s initiative is the latest in a string of new multimillion
dollar efforts against the BDS movement. A long list of Jewish groups,
including the Jewish Federations of North America, the Jewish National
Fund, the Sheldon Adelson-backed Maccabee Task Force and StandWithUs,
along with the Israeli government itself, have announced their own
anti-BDS programs in recent months.

“There are many excellent efforts out there aimed at combating BDS
and other delegitimization,” said Jonathan Greenblatt, the ADL’s
national director, in an emailed statement about the new effort. “We
hope our work will complement and reinforce these existing initiatives.”

The ADL would not say how much its new initiative would cost. The
group also could not say whether its effort would target groups and
individuals promoting a boycott restricted to Israeli companies based on
the Israeli-occupied West Bank, whose Jewish-only settlements are
considered illegal by the international community. “We’re studying it,”
said a spokesman via email.

Greenblatt, who succeeded longtime ADL national director Abraham
Foxman in 2015, worked in the White House as a Special Assistant to the
President and Director of the White House Office of Social Innovation
& Civic Participation from 2011 to 2014.

The new ADL-Reut Institute joint program will result in a study, to
be published later this year, that will outline a new strategy for
opposing BDS.

Reut, a not-for-profit organization, has done similar work before.
Its 2010 report on “delegitimization,” the last Jewish defense buzzword
before the current focus on BDS, was influential in setting policy for
Israeli and Jewish groups in recent years as they’ve opposed anti-Israel
activists.

In that report,
Reut called for a “re-branding” of Israel and “undermining” the
“catalysts” of delegitimization. It also called for using Israel’s spy
agencies to make delegitimization a priority.

The group also suggested what it called a “price tag” for people who
are harshly critical of Israel to make “attacking Israel” a “more risky
enterprise.” The report cited press attacks on two Human Rights Watch
employees who had criticized Israel during the course of their work. (In
recent years the term “price tag” has come to refer to violence carried
out against Palestinians by settlers; Reut was not calling for
violence.)

In a statement provided by the ADL, Reut president Gidi Grinstein called BDS a “new form of anti-Semitism.”

“We will work to offer a visionary and strategic approach – and to effectuate it,” Grinstein said.

Greenblatt defended his group’s decision to launch its own anti-BDS
effort, despite the large number of groups already running their own
programs. “I think the ADL has unique capabilities,” Greenblatt said.
“We’ve been working with authorities, law enforcement, public officials
and others, literally for generations since we were founded in 1913,
which makes us very different.”

Asked whether he was suggesting that BDS was a law enforcement
matter, Greenblatt said no. He said that ADL “literally for generations”
had done research and analysis to aid public officials.

“We have a center for extremism that has been looking at these kinds of issues for a very long period of time,” Greenblatt said.

Nakba Keys

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About Me

I am an activist who, at different times over several years, has lived and worked as a international volunteer in the West Bank of the Occupied Palestinian Territories. This blog is an account of my time in Palestine and also carries original news, comment and analysis (as well as reprints) on Palestine. Live from Occupied Palestine campaigns for an end to Israeli apartheid and the brutal illegal occupation of the Palestinian people. You are welcome to reprint any material from this blog authored by Kim, however, please acknowledge the author and the blog website